PARENT-CHILD CONTACT IN AUSTRALIA: EXPLORING FIVE DIFFERENT POST-SEPARATION PATTERNS OF PARENTING

While there is good information on the broad patterns of parenting after separation in Australia, which parents opt for which patterns and why remains poorly understood. This article summarizes recent Australian research into five different post-separation patterns of father-child contact: (i) 50/50 shared care, (ii) little or no contact, (iii) holiday-only contact, (iv) daytime-only contact, and (v) ‘standard’ contact. Two sources of data are used: qualitative data from a series of focus groups, and data from a large representative sample of separated/divorced parents in Australia. Joining the dots between both sets of data there is much to suggest that family dynamics in tandem with demographic factors temper the form that parent-child contact takes, with different combinations of factors clearly linked to qualitatively different patterns of post-separation parenting.